


Vergilian

by Niedergeschlagen



Series: Tell the bees [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Character Study, Feuilly is my sad Northern boy whose magic doesn't work in Paris and that's tea, Gen, Paganism, bad Latin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 02:01:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14823083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niedergeschlagen/pseuds/Niedergeschlagen
Summary: He remembers the old gods. Now that he thinks of it, grounded in the cement of Paris, boxed neatly between the historical monuments, he realises the gods were merely spirits of the forest. Everything feels more severe, grander in the North.





	Vergilian

The profound loneliness of Honoré-Immanuel Feuilly is a forest. His mind need not be a house to be haunted, he quotes Dickinson. He thinks of himself in the terms of dark valleys, pines as old as time, young birches bleeding sap, austere erratics standing proud against the grey sky. His loneliness lives there, in that forest.

When Feuilly thinks of the home of his loneliness, he thinks of the forest that grew right behind his childhood house up in the North. He thinks about the forest fondly, about the shores of the Baltic sea licking the heels of the woods. He misses the salty air, thick with the stench of seaweed, and the damp spruces around him, reaching for him with their prickly arms. He reminisces on the first sparks of magic that exploded from his fingertips one green afternoon, when he was young, much too young to really remember his initial reaction to his magic. 

He remembers the old gods. Now that he thinks of it, grounded in the cement of Paris, boxed neatly between the historical monuments, he realises the gods were merely spirits of the forest. Everything feels more severe, grander in the North. His magic was stronger there, he was bound to the land, his lifeblood had spilled on many occasions on the sharp rocks in the woods and the jutting stones in the sea. 

The gods do not live in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and where the gods don't live, Feuilly feels nothing for.

He lies alone in bed at night and listens to Bahorel talking to the ghosts of the ancient apartment building. He can't talk to the ghosts. He doesn't hear them or see them. He doesn't feel their presence, but Bahorel assures him they're there. 

Out of Feuilly's friends most of them have been born in France, a large portion of them in Paris as well. Their magic leaks from the wellspring of Paris, it flows like the Seine. Sometimes, during meetings, he sullenly watches Jehan grow flowers out of flecks of dust, Combeferre spin out colourful distelfinks to amuse Courfeyrac, Grantaire hunched over his sketchbook and working on his sigils. Feuilly watches Enjolras's hand move across the pages of his grimoire, handwriting loopy and curly and slanted to the right. 

He feels a small tug of magic, when he's amongst friends. Otherwise he's like an empty conch shell without the hum of the ocean. 

He folds himself into Cosette's arms and lets himself be consoled by her. She whispers an incantation, he strains his ear to hear what she's saying. 

"Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia silvae," Cosette says and drops a kiss on Feuilly's cheek. "Listen, my love, you're just different. You're not broken. Your home is elsewhere, your magic is elsewhere. I bet the rest of us would be useless up in the North."

Feuilly doubts that but doesn't voice his thoughts. He knows Cosette can see them plain as day on his face.


End file.
